I grew up in a very small town It's was the kind of place where everyone knew everyone and there were no strangers, because all these same families had lived there for at least four or five generations. It was in many ways an idyllic farming community. But it had its problems. For example a family could fall that fell into ruin may never get out. The sins of one person were remembered and applied to their descendants long after the sinner was in their grave and past remembering.
I remember the labels attached to each of us at a very young age. These were the "wealthy" (Looking back what was considered wealth in that area was laughable) families so their daughters were cheerleaders, prom queens, and the "hottest" girls in school. These were the poor families so no one looked twice at their daughters. I remember sitting back one day and wondering when the labels were applied to us all and how valid they were. The popular girls in my opinion, weren't terribly pretty, some were but most it would generous to say were of average looks. On the other hand there was one girl from the poorest family who stunningly beautiful and had the sweetest and kindest disposition and yet had never been asked out even once. So clearly people weren't actually looking at the person, only the label.
It wasn't until the area began opening up and more and more new people began moving in that I saw the dynamics of our school hierarchy begin to shift. The families in power stayed in power but often found that the new kids weren't interested. They looked with fresh eyes and no prior labels, and suddenly those girls who had been overlooked were rocketing to the top of the popularity scale. I wasn't really a part of any of this, merely an observer, but I for one, reveled in their success. And for my own part, began to see myself and others differently. Maybe I wasn't what others said I was. Maybe it was possible to be exactly who I wanted to be. Maybe I got to choose which labels to allow and which to reject.
All of this helped to form my decision to move away from my small town, to leave all the labels and the curses of past generations behind. It was liberating, addictive even. I remember coming back home for a bit and running into an old friend from school. I was wearing a vintage Depression era dress and my friend looked me over, then curled her lip and said, "you're wearing a dress!" I agreed. She gave an incredulous sputter, "But, you Hate dresses!" I could feel my eyebrows knit as I replied, "No, I love dresses." At our school only the popular girls wore dresses; everyone else was thought of as trying to step outside their station and therefore mocked for wearing dresses, sometimes in the form of having their skirt pulled for all to see and laugh. That's what I hated, not dresses.
So, I moved away and tried to be the kind of person I wanted to be...but it wasn't so easy. Even though others weren't applying these labels to me, they'd been there for so long, I saw myself slipping into them as an enforced habit. When an amazing guy asked me out, I often said no because I felt I wasn't worthy, or after a few dates I would end things because I couldn't handle the pressure of feeling that everyone was staring and wondering, "who does she think she is!"
Of course, no on was thinking that; no one even knew me in all the places I lived after I moved away, let alone cast such harsh high school-judgemosque judgements, but it was so well ingrained into my being that it took a lot of years and a lot of work to escape.
Moving back to this small town I've found a few people who never left this town, and that's ok. The problem comes when people try to force me back into my old labels, or worse, apply them to my children. I worked hard to be the kind of person I want to be, regardless of where I live or who my family is from 100 years ago to the present day.
That's why I don't understand the current trend of madly rushing to label oneself. So many people have fought to free us of labels and boxes and ceilings and yet now it seems like people are desperate to define themselves in the most narrow ways possible.
Don't do it. It's ok to love pixie cuts, circle glasses, and princess dresses. It's Ok to love a little goblin core, with a dash of cottage core and splash of vintage vibes thrown in the mix. Don't limit yourself; don't label yourself. Throw away any of those old labels that just don't fit you or who you want to be. Instead be all the things and like all the things you want without it meaning anything more than you just like them. And write your own story; you don't need any help to just be you.
